Facsimile (“fax”) machines provide the valuable ability to transmit documents quickly and easily from one location to another. One problem with their current capabilities, however, relates to the transmission of confidential information. Typically, a person sending a fax has little control over the document once it is sent. Fax machines are often shared in an office environment where it is possible, even likely, that parties other than the intended recipient will be able to view the document once it is received. The current state of affairs is that confidential information, such as employment or business information, which should not be shared, either is not sent by fax or runs the risk of being disclosed to others if it is sent by fax.
As a partial solution to this problem, there exist fax machines that have the ability to both receive a fax that contains confidential information and to store an electronic version of the fax until the recipient enters a password, at which time the electronic version is printed out on paper. This is only a partial solution, however, because the sending party cannot always know if the receiving fax machine has sufficient memory to store the confidential information. Additionally, the sending party cannot always know if the receiving fax machine has adequate security features to prevent access by interlopers. For example, a machine with adequate security features would limit the number of attempts to enter a password in order to prevent an unauthorized recipient from guessing the correct password. Consequently, if the receiving machine has insufficient or no memory, or if the machine has inadequate or no security features, then the confidential information is vulnerable to disclosure to parties other than the intended recipient.
This “receive and hold” solution has another drawback in that it requires both the sending and receiving machines to be adapted to control access to the confidential information. Even if the sender uses a “receive and hold” near-end machine (i.e., the machine operated by the sender), if the recipient is not equally equipped on the far end (i.e., the position of the recipient's machine), the transmission will not be completed successfully. This solution is, therefore, not universally employable.
It is therefore desirable to provide methods and devices for controlling the facsimile transmission of confidential information.
It is further desirable to control the facsimile transmission of confidential information regardless of whether a far-end fax machine has sufficient memory or security to maintain the confidentiality of transmitted information.
Other desires will become apparent to those skilled in the art from the following description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and claims.